CARY, N.C. – The ninth-ranked Duke men’s tennis team jumped out to a 3-0 advantage but was unable to hold off No. 24 Wake Forest, falling to the Demon Deacons in a thrilling 4-3 decision Saturday afternoon in the semifinals of the 2013 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship at Cary Tennis Park.

The second-seeded Blue Devils (22-5, 10-1 ACC), captured the doubles point and collected two early victories in singles but a late rally by third-seeded Wake Forest (20-7, 7-3 ACC) ended Duke’s run in the tournament.

“This was a match we were in a position to win and we couldn’t do it,” said head coach Ramsey Smith. “Full credit to Wake Forest. They competed really well.”

The 24th-ranked tandem of sophomore Jason Tahir and freshman Michael Redlicki led Duke off the courts in doubles, using a key break at 5-3 to collect an 8-3 victory over the Demon Deacons’ Danny Kreyman and Adam Lee. The win pushed Tahir and Redlicki’s record to 24-6 overall and 15-4 in dual match play.

Senior Henrique Cunha and sophomore Raphael Hemmeler, the second-ranked doubles pair in the nation, went up by a break against No. 48 Amogh Prabhakar and David Hopkins of Wake Forest on two occasions in the No. 1 doubles contest. However, Prabhakar and Hopkins fought back to tie the score at 6-all before the Duke duo closed out the match and clinched the doubles point with a 9-7 win. Cunha and Hemmeler registered their second doubles victory of the ACC Tournament with the victory, and also improved their overall mark to 33-3.

Juniors Chris Mengel and Fred Saba were trailing Jon Ho and Anthony Delcore, 5-7, on court three when the match was abandoned.

The Blue Devils kept the momentum rolling early on in singles action, posting first-set wins on four of the six courts. Cunha, the No. 6 player in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s national singles rankings, set the tone early with an emphatic 6-2, 6-1 win over Wake Forest’s Hopkins in the No. 1 matchup. With the victory, Cunha remained unbeaten at the No. 1 spot in dual match singles play with a 17-0 ledger. Tahir then swung the score to 3-0 in Duke’s favor just a short while later, topping Delcore in straight sets, 6-1, 6-2. The Rochester, N.Y., native delivered his second singles win of the tournament and moved to 28-4 overall on the spring.

Although the Blue Devils held a 3-0 advantage in the match, Wake Forest showed no signs of relenting, forcing third sets on two courts. Kreyman picked up a point for the Demon Deacons in the No. 2 contest, defeating No. 37 Saba by a 6-4, 6-2 margin. After 70th-ranked Hemmeler took the first set on court five by a score of 6-4, Ho of Wake Forest responded with a 6-2 win in the second and outlasted Hemmeler in the third set, 6-2. With the match score at 3-2, attention then turned to the remaining action on courts three and four.

Redlicki, the No. 52 player in the ITA singles poll, raced to a 6-3 win in the first set of his No. 3 singles match against 78th-ranked Prabhakar, who then edged the Duke rookie in the second frame, 7-5. The deciding set saw the two players trade breaks three times, with Prabhakar forcing a third-set tiebreaker.

Meanwhile, two more ranked players were locked in a tight contest on court five, as the Demon Deacons’ Lee, ranked No. 105 in the nation, thwarted a first-set rally by No. 112 Mengel to win, 7-5. In the second set, Mengel kept Lee on the court for an extended amount of time, but ultimately fell, 7-5, to tie the match at 3-3.

Despite a strong effort from Redlicki in the deciding No. 5 match, Prabhakar won the tiebreaker, 7-0, to send Wake Forest to the 4-3 semifinal win. The Demon Deacons will face top-seed Virginia, who downed Clemson in the other semifinal by a 4-0 score, Sunday, Apr. 28 in the championship match.

“I hope this motivates our team, because we have a good team," Smith said. "We just didn’t take care of business today.”

Duke will await the 2013 NCAA Tournament selections, which will be announced Tuesday, Apr. 30.